


Advent IX

by Tammany



Series: Assorted Advent Stories, Christmas 2014, All-sorts, some connected. [9]
Category: Sherlock (TV)
Genre: Advent, Christmas, Coming Out, Family History, Father-Son Relationship, Gen, Holmes Brothers
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2014-12-06
Updated: 2014-12-06
Packaged: 2018-02-28 09:09:33
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,206
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/2726780
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Tammany/pseuds/Tammany
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>And this one just came to me, and I was a good girl and wrote like crazy.</p><p>Happy-sad. Sweet-bitter. Family feels at holidays. Holmes brothers, both good and ill. Father does love his boys dearly.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Advent IX

Siger found his oldest son curled in the window seat on the half-landing under the high gothic windows looking out over the drive, two and one half stories up from ground level.

“I’d forgotten this was your place,” he said, softly, from the top of the stair leading to the floor below.

Mycroft startled and jumped, moving with a fluid, deadly skill that pierced Siger to the heart. Before he even reached a proper fight stance, though, he realized where he was, and who had spoken. He settled back down on the thick cushions of the bench, bracing the bow of his back against the framing arch of the bow window and wrapping his arms around his knees. “Yes,” he said, softly. “I like the view.”

“You like the perch,” Siger corrected him, walking silently over and sitting at the far side of the seat, leaning against the other side of the arch. “Half-way up the stairs isn’t up and isn’t down…”

“It isn’t in the nursery, it isn’t in the town,” Mycroft continued, and quirked a tiny smile. “Yes. There is that. It always did seem made just for me: not one thing or another.”

“But entirely wonderful,” Siger said.

Mycroft turned to him brows rising. “Good heavens, Father. You _are_ in a sentimental mood, aren’t you!”

 “It’s Christmas,” Siger pointed out in dry amusement. “And my oldest son has sent for me to celebrate…and meet the people who are important to him.” He let the words sit for a little while, then said, a bit plaintively, “I should think that was worth a bit of sentiment.” Mycroft ducked his head down, and Siger was suddenly sure he was flushing—as he had so often as a boy. “Oh, Mike. I’m happy, that’s all.”

“It’s Mycroft,” Mycroft mumbled, in rather unconvincing ire. “After all, you gave me the name.”

“You can pull that on Mummy,” Siger said, grinning. “Me, I voted for ‘Michael.’ But she wanted to make sure the old family names survived another generation.”

“You still let them baptize me Mycroft.”

“And you carry it with grace and dignity,” Siger said, smiling. “You honor your family, Mike. I’m proud of you.”

Mycroft’s head shot up, and he stared at his father. “What?”

“I’m proud of you,” Siger said, frowning gently. “We both are, boy. Don’t you know that?”

Mycroft looked away, face set and still. “I…” He swallowed, then said, carefully. “I’m afraid I’m more of a let-down than anything you’re proud of.”

Siger sighed. “Mike….”

“No. I…” Mycroft hunched. “I never do seem to get things right. Not…” He stared out at the black night and the falling snow. “You do know I try to keep Sherlock safe, don’t you? I didn’t get him involved in my work—he gets himself involved. I’m just trying to find some way to bring him in, where we can work with him. He’s—he likes being rogue, Father….”

Siger sighed. “Mike—what are you on about?”

“The two years he was gone—he wanted to do it. Hell, he was going to try to do it on his own. This way I made sure he had backup and resources, at least.”

“Mike…”

“And I didn’t know about what he intended with Magnussen…”

“Mike…”

“And…Father the thing with Eastern Europe…it was the only way I could see to keep them from putting an official hit out on him. He’d cross the line…”

“Mike, damn it—“  He heaved a sigh and, in frustration, grabbed one of the smaller cushions on the window seat and tossed one at Mycroft, hitting solidly.

His son turned, sputtering—then, a wicked grin lighting his face, he snatched the cushion up and heaved it back, laughing. “All right, all right. Guilty of maudlin moping—guilty as charged.”

“Mike, you’re not even gulty of that. Or—maybe of taking too much responsibility for Sherlock. It’s not good for either of you, you know.”

“When I try not to, he gets himself in trouble,” Mycroft sulked. “Serious trouble.”

Siger nodded. He was sure he didn’t know everything, but he was also sure that when Mike said, “trouble” he didn’t mean “late with the rent” or “picked up a few traffic tickets,” or “too many overdue library books.”

“You still can’t save him from everything.”

Outside a tow truck pulled up. Then one of Mycroft’s black Jaguar saloons. Then a Range Rover. The tow truck and the Jaguar continued back toward the garage back in one of the old stable buildings. The Range Rover, though, stopped. The doors were flung open, and Greg Lestrade, Sherlock, and that nice Irish girl, Janine, tumbled out. Sherlock reached into the space behind the back seat and pulled out a suitcase.

“Wasn’t she supposed to be catching the train?”

Mycroft knelt high, looking down, hands braced on the stone window sill. “Yes,” he said, glee bubbling in his voice.

Siger stood, ignoring achy joints. He craned his neck. “What happened, then?”

“They ran out of gas on the way down to the station,” Mcyroft said, with the prim, self-satisfied tone Siger remembered from the days when the two boys were endlessly trying to one-up each other with pranks and games. Mike usually won, he remembered—and seldom realized how large those wins loomed in his little brother’s universe.

“He’s not going to forgive you,” he said, caught between laughter and dismay. “You’re meddling in his personal life, not just getting one up on him, this time.”

Mycroft turned and stared at him in shock. “Of course I am, Father. Someone has to. He’d drive her down and never call her again.”

“That is his right, you know.”

“Yes, but it would also be his wrong,” Mycroft snapped. “Terrible mistake. If I could trust him to call her again, it would be another thing altogether. But he’d come up with a hundred reasons not to, and there she’d be, ready to be won ‘round, and there he’d be, willing to say sorry if he just knew how, and there they’d both be. Running out of gas seemed…effective.” He sniffed. “Better than making National Rail cancel her train.”

“You can do that?”

Mycroft dimpled, blushed, and shrugged.

“Huh. I suppose I’m glad you didn’t go that far,” Siger said, ruefully. “He’s still never going to forgive you.”

Mycroft leaned close to the window, looking out, his breath fogging the glass. “I don’t care. Look…”

Siger looked out. Two figures stood in the drive, lit briefly by a stream of light as the doors of the mansion opened and shut.

“Greg’s come in,” Mcyroft murmured—but his attention was on the two standing in the falling snow. Sherlock’s head was down as he spoke—the Irish girl, a tall, bonny lass if Siger had ever seen one, looked up at him, her face strong but merry. He couldn’t tell what they were saying. He could tell that they were both uneasy, seeming to circle some tender shared wound. But they didn’t part. She said something, her face wry and sardonic—and Sherlock’s head flew back as he laughed and laughed. She paused, then smiled, joining him in laughter.

When they stopped, Siger saw his younger son reach out and stroke her hair from her brow—and lean down and kiss her. It was simple, tender, and quiet. So nearly as he could tell, she kissed back, though neither intensified the kiss. When Sherlock pulled away her face was pensive. They both looked at their toes; then, with obvious uncertainty, they turned and walked to the stairway together, side by side, though not hand in hand. A moment later light flashed again—and the drive was empty of everything but the Range Rover slowly growing a white mushroom cap in the falling snow.

“That was worth a bit of meddling,” Mycroft said, smugly.

“You shouldn’t meddle, Mikey,” Siger said, barely holding back laughter.

“Why not,” he asked, voice tart. “He hates me anyway. I can’t make him hate me much worse. At least this way—“ He sighed. “At least this once doing the right thing for him would make him happy, instead of just alive.”

“Son…”

“No,” Mycroft growled. “I’ve given up on better, Father. I tried, and every single time I saved him he hated me more. Sometimes the only thing to do is accept it and move on.”

“Mike…” Siger frowned and sat—this time close to his son, who still knelt high, hands on the window sill, staring out into the night. “He doesn’t hate you, Mike. He’s terrified he’s let you down.”

“Just like Mummy always said he only hurt me because he wanted my attention?” Mycroft said, sardonic and angry. “You have no idea how hard I tried to believe that. Eventually I realized it was what Mummy wanted to believe, too.”

“She was right, Mike.”

Mycroft didn’t answer.

Siger had never known himself what to do about the boys. Both so much their mother’s sons, he thought—so bright, and so unsure of themselves emotionally or socially. But they’d clawed each other to pieces by mistake, and he’d never known how to stop it.

And Mycroft wasn’t entirely wrong. Sherlock was Em’s beloved baby—the boy she’d almost lost at birth. The one most like her in temperament, if not intellect. She’d found it so much easier to see things through Sherlock’s eyes, to protect the baby from the calmer, quieter, more difficult to read older boy. And she’d tended to interpret Sherlock’s actions more as she wished they were than she might have.

And he himself had felt unfit to try to interfere with his oldest boy’s fragile, brittle genius.

“We’re proud of you,” he said again. “And happy for you.”

Mike looked at him, eyes haunted. “What?” His voice broke with nerves.

“Greg—he’s a good man.”

Mike went white, then scalding red. “Oh.” His voice was small. “You realized?”

“I may not be the smart one, but I’m not a nitwit,” he laughed. He brushed a hand across his son’s shoulder. “Did I ruin a surprise?”

Mike flushed, and stuttered, and then forced himself to say, “No. Yes. I mean—I was going to tell you. But—I didn’t know how. When…”

Siger smiled. “Consider me told,” he said. “Your mother, too. Make an announcement if you like—but do it knowing we’re cheering for you. Do you have plans?”

Mycroft shrugged. “Not yet. It’s…we’re both in the secret service. We’re both targets. We’ve barely even…” He folded back down onto the cushions, and leaned again against the arch of the window.

“No rush,” Siger said. “No obligations, either. Set your lives up the way you need to.”

Mycroft nodded.

Siger sighed to himself. Always such a quiet boy, his Mike…

“I’m going down to see if Happy Hour has started,” he said. “You keep a good cellar. A glass of port would be welcome tonight.”

Mycroft nodded, and waved one long hand absently, in farewell or dismissal—it was hard to tell which. Siger smiled ruefully, and started back down.

“Father?” Mike’s voice was sad and fretful, like a child worn with fever.

He stopped and looked back to where his son sat, just visible, his coiled form seeming small and fragile against the looming black of the sky outside. “Yes?”

“Did—did you and Mummy ever get over that night?”

Siger knew exactly what night he meant. His stomach twisted in a miserable knot. It had not gone well.

“Yes,” he said, softly. “Did you ever forgive us? We didn’t mean to be so…upset. Please, don’t blame us for feeling the way we were taught to feel.”

Mycroft shrugged. “I never meant to hurt you. I didn’t mean to make Mummy cry.”

“I know,” Siger said.

“Does she?”

Siger wasn’t completely sure. Em had so much trouble sorting what she wanted from what she knew. He was afraid some small part of her believed, even now, that Mike could have chosen to be other than he was—to desire other than he did. Now wasn’t the time for complete disclosure. Not when an almost-truth came closer to what Em tried to be than truth itself could. “She knows,” he said. “She knows.”

Mike nodded.

“We love you, son.”

He could almost hear Mycroft silently thinking, “But you loved the Mike you thought I was better. And Sherlock more than that.”

Both of which had been most unfortunately true. Loving, Siger had come to realize, meant learning to know who you really loved, not who you imagined them to be. But the learning hurt like hell, sometimes.

Below, someone had put on the Messiah. The music soared.

_For unto us a child is born_

_Unto us a son is given;_

_Unto us a son is given…_

_And the government shall be upon his shoulders,_

_And his name shall be called:_

_Wonderful,_

_Counselor…_

_.....the Prince of Peace…_

Siger’s eyes flooded, and he had to cling to the banister.

He wondered if he would ever be able to tell his quiet, shy son that for years he’d been unable to hear that music without thinking of him—and marveling that he’d been given the blessing of being his father.


End file.
